[Linux-discussion] The dangers of Open Core and Canonical's admission

[gene heskett]

On Sunday, October 17, 2010 07:52:29 pm Tom H did opine:

> On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 6:09 PM, A. Mani <a.mani.cms at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Another nice article on open-core:
> > http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Guest-commentary-Open-Core-is-ov
> > er-1097073.html
> > 
> > For all those that go ga-ga over Ubuntu, which includes government
> > departments promoting a single GNU/Linux Distro policy based on
> > Ubuntu, here is perhaps a lesson and cautionary tale!
> > 
> > Unfortunately it is not a "tale", its entirely true
> > 
> > http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/10/17/shuttleworth-admits-it.html
> > 
> > Forget Free Software (or Software freedom), its questionable if you'll
> > remain even Open Source in the long run. Here is what RMS has to say
> > about the "Open Core" argument
> > 
> > http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/assigning-copyright
> 
> Thanks (because I've been meaning to google copyright assignment
> because of systemd) but this post belongs on a discussion list not a
> technical support list.

Maybe so, but you will have to admit its damned enlightening.  And because 
some other SW I use is dependent on having a stable release that isn't a 
wash rinse repeat at 6 month intervals, they have chosen to rely on 
Ubuntu's LTS versions since the original LTS versions were announced.  Now, 
if Shuttleworths intention is to take large parts of his distro out of the 
GPL, we will be forced to find another more co-operative distro, or freeze 
our base install and maintain it for security etc fixes ourselves.  This is 
not a practical to do thing as there aren't near enough of us to tackle 
making our own distro.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
"I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn."
-- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitir about Michael Jackson